Famous Bands/Players from your home town

[DanDoulogos]

I thought it'd be fun to compare which bands others would know that come from our home town, or "close enough".

I wasn't born in Winnipeg (Manitoba, Canada), but I've lived here most of my life. Bands and players that come from Winnipeg (or made their start here) that I can remember are (in order of my remembering them) - at least the ones that some of you might recognize, are The Guess Who, Neil Young, The Crash Test Dummies, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Harlequin and Terry Jacks (Poppy Family).

It's hard to pick a favorite tune from each of these local bands, but mine would be:

The Guess Who: No sugar tonight
Neil Young: Old man
Crash Test Dummies: Superman's song
Bachman-Turner Overdrive: You ain't seen nothing yet
Harlequin: Thinking of you
Terry Jacks: Seasons in the Sun

Though I've lived here, I've never seen any of these bands live (how pathetic is that?). I know people who know some of these players and band members personally, but the only band I've ever "met" locally was the Crash Test Dummies, who showed up at this crowded university party the band I was in was playing in (back in the late 80s) was playing at. They hadn't released anything on a label yet, but they were known on the local scene. To be sure, we (the band) didn't really *meet* them - they dropped in when we were already playing, stayed for our two hour set, then moved on to another party before we really had a chance to mingle. I don't think it was the whole band either - there were just three or four of them, and though the place was crowded, they more or less kept to themselves. I heard that they weren't all that impressed by us. But that was a great party...

How about the rest of you? It'd be great to hear what the local music scene was like in your town, and what your favorite songs are from your local talents - and any stories (even lame ones like mine) about them.

[Danley]

I grew up in SoCal (mostly Orange County) so ton of choices there. Too many to name.

But I moved to the Sacramento area during high school. The guitarist for Papa Roach lived in my neighborhood and the rest of the band in the surrounding area, right around the time they started making it on the radio; so there was a bit of (in retrospect absurd) hero worship. From all accounts they were pretty cool, at one point they filmed a music video on the bridge in the middle of our small city and it basically turned into a party when all the kids in the area gathered. Cool stuff for a "small town" that seemed in the middle of nowhere for me after moving from Orange County. Hell, I bought a Schecter.

I moved down to Riverside for college, and formed my first band in the shadow of Alien Ant Farm who also just about got both their songs playing on the radio; again dumb to think about it, but we sort of revered that at the time, even though they were only popular for about six months. I saw them at a beer festival a couple years ago, very nostalgic. (He played a Schecter too, come to think of it. Maybe I don't remember why I bought mine then.)

Oh, here's a weird one. For a while in my youth I lived in Fresno. Our neighbors were a very nice family with two girls I played with (I was not very nice btw.) Their dad was a Christian musician and was associated with a few apparently popular acts.

One day Barry McGuire dropped in for a visit. "Eve of Destruction" fame; I'd even heard of the song at eight years old and thirty years after its release, for some damn reason. Guess he lived in the area. Somehow he wound up in my house, playing Super Nintendo. I think it evolved into him teaching us a Barney/Sesame Street-esque lesson about sharing or trying your very best or something.

[suave eddie]

I graduated High School in '69 in a suburb east of L.A. A couple of the Surfaris (Wipeout, etc) were from my high school. Vince Neil graduated from there several years after I left.

[john o]

since delaware is tiny and bordered by 3 other states, 2 of which I've lived in, I'm going to claim some regional artists:
Philly: the Hooters (80's)
South NJ: Bon Jovi
Baltimore: Crack the Sky
Delaware: George Thorogood ( the only one of the 4 I haven't seen live)

[Nubs]

John Oates graduated from the same high school as I did. Hall & Oates were Philly boys, so that's pretty cool.

[Danley]

Not a band in the traditional sense, but G&L is a hometown OC hero too (as well as Rickenbacker a bit further down the Freeway from me, Fender right past the county line in Corona, Lace pickups, a few other smaller companies/builders etc.)

I think that's why from a very young age (when I was maybe five, far before I thought about playing guitar) I was aware of G&L; they always seemed more represented in small stores where my Dad bought acoustic strings and songbooks, relative to other parts of the state and country.

[dhgleaves]

I was born in Nashville, so I'm not sure where to start. Where I currently live (Adelaide, South Australia) is known for several musicians including The Angels (who were huge in Australia but not so much in other parts of the world), Cold Chisel (who were similarly huge locally but not so much overseas) and, most recently, Sia (is she known in North America)?

[Aussie]

Arguably my home town of Perth has had a disproportionate impact in the Aus music scene, but hasn’t really delivered any world famous dinosaur artists save perhaps INXS, but has produced a good few internationally highly successful and respected bands/players in some particular genres:

The enduring blues and slide player Dave Hole – who still hasn’t returned an overdrive pedal he borrowed back in the 80’s https://youtu.be/8uA4It2ErGA

Dave Faulkner – founder of the 80s and 90’s pop rockers Hoodoo Gurus

G&L endorsers INXS built their career in Perth starting out as The Farriss Brothers

The Triffids fronted by my good but tragic friend David McComb. 80’s post punk alternative rock legends in Australia and Europe but not really in the Americas. Wide Open Road is a classic. https://youtu.be/7N5akOOlGTI

2000+ Drum and Bass band Pendulum , more successful in Europe than at home here in Aus https://youtu.be/ogMNV33AhCY

Psychedelic Rock revivalists Tame Impala who’ve been filling venues worldwide for the past decade.

Oh and of course AC/DC’s second front man, Bon Scott, had his musical origins here in Perth. Many are probably familiar with Bon’s AC/DC era, but fewer will be aware of his previous bands early 70’s prog rockers Fraternity and 60’s bubblegum band The Valentines https://youtu.be/YcDWsTG7s-4 https://youtu.be/BQ-45XG7n4k

cheers, Robbie

[candleman]

Hope I'm not too late for this thread, LOL... better late than never...

I currently live near Jacksonville, Florida. This the the home to more people with the last name Van Zant than you can shake a stick at, haha...

Lynyrd Skynyrd calls Jacksonville a home.

After having lived here for many years, and showing up at somebody's house for a jam session, it is very typical to show up and there might be 3, 4, 5 guitar players. I call it the "regional home of the guitar army jam session"... so I can understand how Skynyrd developed their 3-guitar sound, having derived their regional jams from this area.

I live outside of Jacksonville and the things is here, that music and musicians are few and far between, so if there is a jam session at somebody's house, guys might drive for miles to get there and to be in the same room with a drummer, bass player and somebody who can half-azzed sing.

There is one fellow who comes to the jams here that is a die-hard Lynyrd Skynyrd WORSHIPPER... I say worshipper because he goes way beyond just "liking" their music, or having been "influenced" by their music. He is his own one man Lynyrd Skynyrd Tribute Band... hahaha... Name a Skynyrd song, even ones that got zero airplay and buried in the album somewhere, and he can pop it off note for note. Now THERE's a Lynyrd Skynyrd fan. He's not just a fan, he's an entire commercial air conditioning unit for Skynyrd, haha.

And he does it all on an old beat-to-heck 1961 Gibson SG that has frets so worn you'd think each dent is the Grand Canyon... but he won't get her re-fretted as its "all original" he says... I played his guitar at a jam not too long ago, and when I gave it back to him I said "man, I've never played a guitar so whipped in my whole life (of 40+ years of guitaring)... he kinda looked at me, like, "whaaaaat?

Rebel flag and all, I guess I've played my share of Skynyrd tunes, too. And some of them I wish nobody would ever call for again in any jam... such as "Gimme Three Steps"... that one is so worn out that it makes me seasick just to hear it... When I was 17 or 18 (I'm 56 now...) I could play the entire Freebird solo note-for-note, and I cut my Skynyrd teeth back in the day with their live album "One More From the Road"... I used to have a Sears and Roebuck all-in-one stereo that I got for Christmas in like 1976. It had everything you need... AM/FM stereo tuner, a turntable that played 78/33/45 speed vinyl, and of course it came complete with an 8-tracj tape player AND recorder. You used to be able to buy blank 8-track tapes at the store. It also came with a microphone. That stereo was still in my o0ld bedroom at my parent's house until dad died in 2015 and my sister took over the house and gutted everything she could to the large dumpster rental out back.

At least I was able to salvage all of my 1960s early 70s redline Hot Wheels cars... well what was left of them after my nephew sold all the most expensive ones on eBay...

Skynyrd sort of taught me the blues and the Pentatonic scale, and in the early 80s, I was bored with the 3 chords of most rock and roll and started studying straight ahead jazz. That became an infinite search for the lost chord. George Van Eps claims in one of his books there are over 344 BILLION available chords on the neck of the guitar. My head got so full it could pop studying all that stuff, then I went back to blues and was successful as a full-time musician playing in a blues duo with a harmonica player. Got married, got divorced, went back to college at 40, got several degrees, never got a job from any of them, got to be homeless not once but twice, then while working in Texas I had a surgery that left me disabled.

Now I am living in Florida again, but I can still play the heck out of a guitar. Which is one thing life has not taken from me yet. So, I gave my talent to God and I play contemporary Gospel music in church, now. Plus I play Sunday nights at a Hispanic church. I don't speak Spanish, but music is the universal language and they are so super supportive of me, my playing, and helpful to my new disabled life. It warms my heart to play there, Spanish or no Spanish.

Somewhere in the mix of everything are my Jacksonville-living roots, and some influences of southern rock, but for me it didn't stop there.

And as far as the best guitars on the planet, hands down those are anything and everything G&L has ever made. They don't pay me to say that... in fact I pay them by buying as many of their guitars as I can afford. I lost count at 20... I'd have to open up cases and go through digital camera pictures to make a list, haha. I always try to take a picture of every one because every one I've ever had was drop-dead gorgeous and truly guitar porn for sure...

OK, but now I'm rambling and off topic, so I'll click "Submit" and send this out to Internet land...

So glad for this forum and a safe place to talk guitar stuff.

Take care,


Candleman

[john o]

nice story, Candleman!
you should post pix of your G&L's in a gallery on GBL so we can check out their beauty.
i wore the grooves down on my vinyl copy of skynyrd's "one more from the road" in the 70's.
sweet home alabama is one of those songs i wouldn't miss if i never played it again, but audiences still love it, they always dance to it, and our keyboard player loves to solo on it, so we do revisit the ritual. I am done with freebird.
you must be into some Allman's as well?

[mutts]

I consider Detroit my hometown. Like others have said there are just too many bands to list. I was born there but raised in the burbs. At eighteen I moved to the city proper and stayed there for about a decade. I lived there in the 80-90s time frame. in those days you could go see Jim McCarty from Cactus at local blues clubs. I met and shared bills with John Sinclair (MC5 manager) numerous times. The drummer from the band I was in did artwork for the White Stripes. The keyboard player from the Black Crowes was a Detroiter and hung out at neighborhood watering holes frequently. Aretha never left Detroit. The Nuge lived in Jackson Mi at the time but was always popping up on FM radio.In the same era I lived there eminem was starting to build a name locally (though I never saw or met him). He still lives in Detroit too. Kid Rock is that same generation (but I would almost rather not mention that.)One guy I knew quite well was Sixto Rodriguez. We lived in the same part of town and he was well known by all but not for his albums at that time. People knew he had recorded albums but it was prior to the Sugarman movie. This was around the time he actually tried to run for Mayor. A super cool guy.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAaFTOLAziM[/video]

I live in northern Michigan now and surprisingly there are some musicians in the general area in so far as they own vacation property around here. Bob Seger has a home around here, I believe Mark Farner actually lives here year round. Madonna's family has a winery. etc